New - My Study Bar - a comprehensive set of portable open source and freeware applications to support learners with literacy difficulties. MyStudyBar is similar to popular commercial programs which use a floating toolbar to support literacy. The main difference is MyStudyBar is free. The toolbar includes a range of tools to support inclusion such as mind mapping, screen masking, word prediction, talking dictionary, text-to-speech, Save as MP3 and voice recognition. PC Only. (Speech recognition only works in Vista or Windows 7)
Inkless Tales - Listen to stories including Dolch words. (use the control + keys to enlarge the font size if students are following along)
Into the Book - Excellent reading comprehension resource - Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing. K-4
Spell a Picture- Excellent activity for building phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling for early readers, lots of picture prompts
Story Line Online - Listen to stories read by Screen Actors Guild members - follow along with the text
Children's StoryBooks Online - illustrated stories for young children, older children and young adults. Some include audio.
Browser Books - "This website was created to allow beginning readers to read books on their web browser. Readers can click on the triangle in the lower right-hand corner of each page to turn the pages. If they are unsure of a word, they can click on it to hear a child's voice read the word to them. The books have been sorted by level and by subject according to the curriculum." (from the website)
Tar Heel Reader Here you’ll find a collection of easy-to-read books on a wide variety of topics. Each book is switch accessible and speech enabled. You may download the books as a slide show in PowerPoint, Impress, or Flash format. Appropriate for beginning readers of all ages, including adolescents.
Resources for grades 6 - 12
Shmoop -- Guides to about 200 classic school novels – Intro (includes a Why Should I care section) Summary, Themes, Quotes, Characters, Analysis, Questions, Photos, Quizzes, Best of the Web, Write Essay and Teaching. Includes a step-by-step essay writing tool. Includes ads but the site is so rich, we can overlook them.
60 Second Recap - (has ads) video recaps of classic literature read in middle and high schools. (ie. Beowolf, 1984, Adventures of Huck Finn, Lord of the Flies,
Planet eBooks - Free classic literature to download (middle school and up)
Poetry Foundation - free resource to find poetry by category, by name, by title, by author, or by first line. It's digital, attach a voice and it's now accessible!
Free Literacy Tools
Resources for grades 6 - 12